


The Lost Mikaelson

by Tumble8385



Category: The Vampire Diaries & Related Fandoms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:21:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27881418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tumble8385/pseuds/Tumble8385
Summary: We all know the story of the Originals, how Ester turned five of her children into the first vampires. What we didn't know was that there was another. Ayana had been able to save one of the children from being turned by sending her away with a spell. In her haste, she made a mistake and accidentally sent the child one thousand years away rather than one thousand miles. This is the story of the youngest Mikaelson child.Originally posted on ffnet
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

**This story starts at the beginning of season three. Vicki had no relation to Matt; she was just friends with Jeremy.**

**Maddie has been friends with the gang for years but has been gone for the past 11 months.**

**XXXXXXXXX**

It felt odd to be back. It had been less than a year since she had left on the Mystic high overseas trip but time had a way of twisting itself and Maddie couldn't tell if it had been an eternity since she had been back or if no time at all had passed since she last drove through these streets. It felt like just yesterday she had been driving off to the airport with her friends, and yet the memory felt like it had been made years ago. _Her friends._ A smile pulled at her lips. She had missed the girls, Bonnie, Caroline, and Elena, dearly. They were the reason behind her early return after all.

Everything had gone crazy after she left, but she had been persuaded to stay on her trip up until now. For some reason she couldn't fathom, Maddie stayed away when Elena's parents died the month after she left and again when Bonnie's grandmother passed. She had heard that Vicki had OD'd (that one she wasn't as surprised about), Ty's dad died in a fire, and shockingly enough the list just went on and on. It was like the angel of death had taken her absence as an invitation.

There was also the 'normal' drama, of course. Elena had a new boyfriend and Bonnie started a relationship with Jeremy of all people, among other high school shenanigans. Caroline had kept her up to date with weekly calls about _everything_ and in return, Maddie had told Caroline about her trip to Europe.

The trip had honestly been great. It was an exchange program sort of thing; Maddie went to Europe with her group of Americans and a group of kids from all over Europe came to the US. It had given her a chance to practice her less than stellar French skills, see some of the world, go to new shops, and practice her magic.

Yes, magic. Maddie Donovan was a witch. She had always known that there was something different about herself. It was something that she could just feel, but had never been able to understand until Bonnie's Grams had reached out to her. The young witch shuttered to think of what may have become of her had she been left to deal with her developing powers alone. She was eternally grateful to Sheila for helping her keep control of her emerging powers when she was thirteen. Since then she had gone to her occult teacher's house twice a week to learn, telling her friends that she was earning service hours by helping Grams with things at her work. The girls had believed her fib in the beginning, but after a while it was clear she had already earned more than the needed number of service hours. They had correctly deduced that she enjoyed her time with the occult teacher and after some friendly teasing about stuffy books and summoning ghosts they had accepted that and moved on.

Lying to them was one of the hardest things Maddie was asked to do in the course of her training, but Sheila had said if they were to live normal lives they couldn't know of her powers. Maddie wanted that for them. She wanted to make sure that Caroline and Elena could go off to college and move away from this crazy little town if they wanted. Her one little light of hope through the years of lying was Bonnie. Whenever things got hard Maddie would just remember that one day Bonnie would come into her powers and she would be able to share what she knew with at least one of her friends

When Bonnie, Caroline and Elena had video called her and told her that Grams had died she had openly cried her eyes out. She had tried to convince them that she would come back to Mystic Falls but had been convinced to stay overseas. In fact, they had insisted. She remembered that Bonnie had been the one to finally stop her protests with a sad look and a quiet reminder.

_"Grams wouldn't want you to."_

It was true and all of them knew it. It was also why she had waited this long to return. Sheila had gotten her this opportunity to travel. Despite how nervous Maddie was about leaving her friends and her brother. The old witch had given her a grimoire and told her that she had learned all she could at Mystic Falls and that it was time she had her own adventures.

The thought of her mentor made the town feel less vibrant than it had moments ago. Maddie had tried not to think about all the people that she wouldn't find upon her return trip but now it felt inevitable. She only hoped that some of them were watching over them now from beyond the veil.

_No one ever solved anything by moping._ She reminded herself, pushing the sad thoughts away as she focused on pulling up to the Grill. Taking a deep breath, she checked her reflection in the rear-view mirror and propped her sunglasses up on her head. _Caroline will disown me if I walk in with smeared make up._ She thought, a soft smile lifting the corners of her lips. Without giving herself another moment to wallow in her thoughts, Maddie opened the door, paid the cab driver, and got ready to see her brother.

**XXXXXXXXX**

It was tempting to stand there gaping like a tourist, taking in the familiar sights and smells of old leather booths and cheesy fries, but Maddie had a flare for the dramatic that wouldn't allow it. She slid into a vacant seat and snatched up a menu to hide behind as she saw Matt.

He hadn't changed much, though he seemed much less chipper than she recalled. Not that she could blame him, Elena had dumped him and the year had been hectic to say the least. Plus, she liked to think that her absence had something to do with it, they were siblings after all. As Matt got closer Maddie stopped her peaking and pulled the menu up over her face again like an old school detective with a newspaper.

"What can I get for you?" Matt sounded, as the blonde had predicted, peeved. He flipped open a notepad and didn't bother looking up at his customer, pen posed to start writing.

"And here I was expecting a warm welcome." Maddie muttered, feigning disappointment as she set down the menu. Despite her best efforts, a sly little smile grew on her lips, ruining her weak attempt at acting. She had never been one for theatre, anyway.

"Maddie?" Matt's head snapped up at the familiar voice, all traces of his previous irritation gone.

"Surprise!" She shouted, standing up and opening her arms expectantly for a hug. The star quarterback had no trouble lifting her off her feet and spinning his adoptive little sister around. His grin growing at her cheerful laughter. She pulled herself closer despite the knowing Matt would never dream of dropping her.

"Maddie! Why didn't you tell me you were coming home?" Matt set her back on the floor, but still kept his arms around her, enjoying the first hug he had gotten from his kid sister in eleven months. Maddie didn't mind, she was squeezing back just as fiercely.

"As if you would check your calendar." She joked, pulling back after a moment to find him grinning just as widely as she was.

"Well who does know you're here, Kid?" He asked, unable to withhold a chuckle as she wrinkled her nose at the childhood nickname.

"Just you." She reported, pulling him into another hug, "I decided I'd had enough of Europe and made plans to switch my flight from next month to yesterday." She explained, mostly telling the truth. "Just in time for Elena's birthday."

"We've got to call everyone, let them know your back!"

"No! I hear there's a party tonight, Matt, and I'm the perfect present for Elena if I do say so myself." She put a hand under her chin and posed jokingly. For his part, Matt just huffed out a laugh and raised his hands in surrender.

"Fine, I won't tell anyone. It's just… It's great to have you back, Maddie."

"Aww, I missed you too Matt."

**XXXXXXXXX**

_Later that night..._

Music pounded through the old Salvatore boarding house as the party raged. Maddie had never been in here before and was more than excited to be seeing it now. Everything looked amazing. The furniture, the beautiful old woodwork, and even the mildly creepy paintings looked timeless in her eyes... Then again, she _had_ just helped empty a few bottles so she would need to look again later when she had a clearer head and double check. She was no historian sober so she was definitely unqualified drunk.

After a while of dancing and talking with old friends from her old grade she finally spotted someone she had been waiting to talk with. Standing there with a bottle in one hand and a pout on her lips was Caroline Forbes.

Quickly excusing herself from whatever half drunken partygoer she had been talking too, Maddie raced over to stand by the other Blonde. She looked over the older girl's shoulder to try and see what she was staring, or more accurately, glaring at. When her eyes found Tyler Lockwood dancing against another girl, she wrinkled her noise and made a noise of disgust.

"Gross! Is that Slutty Sophie?" She asked, making a face. She knew Tyler was a bit of a player, so it wasn't surprising but she wasn't a fan of his latest hook-up. There was a best of silence as Caroline took another long swig out of her bottle before her mind caught up with her ears. When it did, Maddie was glad she was paying attention enough to witness it. Caroline spun around so fast she almost dropped her drink, blinking and gesturing that frantic way of hers.

"Oh my god!" Caroline squealed, throwing herself at Maddie, who barely had time to put her own drink down before being barreled into by her best friend. A grunt slipped past Maddie's lips at the strength of the cheerleader's grip and she just barely held back a sarcastic comment about weightlifting. Seemed someone had upped their lifting game since she left. Maddie was vaguely aware of a sudden chill that washed over her at the touch, but easily chalked it up to the drinks and excitement of the night. "Wait, are you actually here, or am I just _really_ drunk?" Caroline suddenly blurted, pulling back and looking at her friend at arm's length with a critical eye.

"Nope, I see her too." Matt assured with a chuckle, coming over from the back hallway to witness the reunion. He figured he could tolerate his ex while Maddie was around. Then he spotted Tyler and nodded towards he and his dance partner, "Since when are they a thing?" He asked.

Caroline frowns and turns away from him to look back at her- her whatever it was they were. Maddie wasn't really sure what the status there was, but she was certainly going to find out. The pause stretched on a little too long for it not to be noticeable before Caroline finally responded.

"I thought you were ignoring me." Had… Had Maddie missed something? She thought that they were on good terms but by the looks on their faces she suspected Caroline had left out some of the details about she and Matt's breakup.

Matt released a half sigh, half chuckle sort of sound while Maddie shifted on her feet debating if she should slip back into the crowd and let these two sort out whatever it was that was bugging them alone.

"I'm not ignoring you."

"Well you've only said five words to me all summer... And those were four of them." Caroline retorts, clearly not believing him.

"Maybe because every time I've seen you you've been with him."

"Because he's my friend. Which is what I thought you were." Maddie frowns and jumps into the conversation.

"Okay, okay, let's not do this on Elena's birthday, hmm?" She prompted, slapping Caroline's arm and hitting Matt upside the head. Her brother sighed, Caroline huffed, and they both seem to calm down a bit. "Yes?" She prompted, giving Matt a jerk in the ribs with her elbow in prompting.

"Sorry... I'm, uh, I'm out of it I guess... I'm sorry." He said before walking away with a single nod to the girls.

Maddie glanced over at Caroline, head cocked and brows raised. She just stared, waiting until Caroline bothered to look away from Tyler's sad excuse for dancing and noticed.

"What?" Caroline asked, defensive right off the bat. Maddie knew her well enough to know that she wouldn't be getting anything out of Caroline in this mood. Besides, this felt like a conversation best had sober.

"I didn't say anything." Maddie surrendered, making a mental note to fight this fight another day. They stood there in silence for only a moment before Caroline got tired of it.

"You see Elena yet?"

Maddie shook her head and that was all Caroline needed to grab her hand and take off in search of the birthday girl. Maddie assumed it was only partially out of the goodness of her heart but mostly just to ensure that Matt wouldn't wander back over to her. Oh well, it worked out for Maddie regardless.

**XXXXXXXXX**

Maddie swung her legs as she sat on the counter, Caroline leaning on the marble surface beside her. She was still twitchy, her eyes darting towards the mini fridge or back towards the door every now and then. After spending an impressive amount of time searching for the birthday girl, the two had decided to wait out the party. During cake or something they would be able to surprise Elena, and until then they would catch up and talk in between Caroline's bouts of moody silence. The door creaked open in the middle of a moderately interesting story about beating Tyler at pool.

"This room's off limits!" Caroline calls, walking over to shoo away who ever came in. Maddie stays there, leaning forward to try and peak around the edge of the wall and see who had entered. She didn't need to wait long for an answer, Elena's voice was unmistakable.

"Caroline?"

"Sorry..." Caroline replied, biting her lip as she tried to come up with a quick explanation. "I just... Needed to take a beat." Maddie didn't wait for Elena to respond to make her appearance. She hopped off the counter and walked around the corner.

"Are you hiding, Birthday girl?" She questioned with a smile. Elena was speechless, just staring with wide eyes and a dropped jaw. She crossed the room in three strides and greeted her friend with a hug. Unlike Caroline's excited, bone crushing squeeze, Elena held her as if Maddie was a precious china doll who would shatter with too much pressure.

"Maddie..." She said with a sigh of almost relief, making the witch smile wider. Tightening her grip on the brunette, Maddie hummed in contentment.

"Happy birthday." The blonde muttered kindly as she pulled away, giving one of Elena's hands a friendly squeeze. "I couldn't think of a present, so I came instead." She joked with a grin.

"Thanks." Elena huffed out a weak laugh before Caroline pipes up. She never was one for beating around the bush.

"So, _are_ you hiding?" She asked, repeating Maddie's earlier question.

"I was just looking for Damon."

"Damon?" Maddie made a face and interjects her two cents into the conversation. Turning mostly towards Caroline seeing as she had been Maddie's personal reporter for the past eleven months. "Okay, um, let me think… He's the angry one, right? The impulsive brother of the boyfriend?" Elena can't help but chuckle at her description.

"Sounds like him." She agreed a bit reluctantly while Caroline snickered, clearly happy that Maddie had adopted her own opinion of the devilish vampire, before realizing that it would be just like him to bail on Elena's party.

"Wait, he better be here! We haven't even done the cake yet." In pure Caroline fashion, the older girl practically stomps her foot with irritation. It was petulant and childish and Maddie hadn't realized quite how much she'd missed these little antics.

"I think I'm gonna pass on the whole 'cake' thing." Elena sighed, preparing herself for the outburst that she knew was coming.

"What? No!"

"No way, no!"

The blondes exchanged glances as Elena raises a brow, amusement leaking through her clearly depressed mentality. Maddie couldn't help but feel amused as well, but Caroline wasn't one to get distracted when something as important as birthday festivities were on the line.

"It's your birthday... You know, it's a dawn of a new day and you can't get on with your life until you've made a wish and blown out the candles." She said, adding in hand gestures as if it would help her point. Elena didn't seem all that pleased.

"Is... Is that what you all want me to do? Just get on with my life?" She asked sounding more than a little offended. For her part, Maddie didn't quire know what to think. When Caroline and Elena fought, she usually was the one to keep the peace, she or Bonnie anyway but unfortunately her fellow mediator was in the wrong state to be useful and Maddie had no idea what was going on here.

"No..." Caroline muttered sensitively. Elena kept looking at her skeptically and then Caroline finally admitted, "maybe. I just don't think anyone wants to keep seeing you like this."

Elena frowned and so did Maddie but for different reasons. Maddie was growing more confused by the second as the conversation continued. Elena seemed a little down, but everyone had bad days. Plus, not that Maddie would ever admit this to Caroline and live to tell the tale, this party wasn't exactly Elena's style. She was more of an intimate gathering type, much like Maddie herself. If Caroline had thrown a ragger like this for Maddie, she would likely be in a similarly disappointed mood.

"I'm _not_ giving up on finding Stefan."

"No of _course_ not!"

"I thought you said Stefan was away visiting family..." Maddie stepped forward, interrupting physically as well as verbally before the arguing got any louder. Plus, she was tired of being confused. Her question effectively snapped the two out of their mini-fight. She watched as the two shared a look, their animosity draining out of them and something akin to panic appearing of Caroline's face. "Am I missing something?"

"Uh, yeah. She's just been waiting for him to come back." Caroline said quickly when it was clear that Elena wasn't going to say anything.

"She said 'find'." Maddie pointed out, suspicion seeping into her tone.

"I must have just made a mistake." Elena snapped out of her momentary panic. "Slip of the tongue."

"Then why are you staring at me like two kids who just got caught with one hand in the cookie jar?" Maddie retorted. Caroline opened and closed her mouth like a fish but Maddie shook her head and sighed. "You know what, I'm drunk, forget it." She dismissed. "Which reminds me, I need a refill." She claimed sending them a small smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.

Caroline waited until Maddie's footsteps disappeared into the sound of music and laughter from downstairs before sagging and holding her head in her hands. Elena just watched the door, her brows furrowed in a conflicted sort of frown.

"We can't keep lying to her, Care. Not now that she's home." It would never work. One day- one hour- and already they had messed up. It was sheer luck that it was something about Stefan and not Klaus or Werewolves or something else as equally inexplicable. Next time they might not be as lucky.

"I know, I know..." Caroline whined, taking a step back and leaning on Damon's bedpost. "But she's the only one of us that might be able to be, I don't know, normal." She reminded her. "Should we really pull her into all this and take that from her?"

"I don't know, Caroline." Elena sighed and rubbed her forehead. Whoever said birthdays were relaxing was a liar, Elena already had a headache brewing and it wasn't even ten o'clock yet. "Let's just agree to put this on pause for now." She suggested and thankfully, Caroline agreed.

"We can see what Bonnie thinks when she gets back."

The two nodded and made to exit the room with the blonde vampire in the lead, but Elena slowed as she spotted something. Damon's closet door was open. Be it curiosity or a last-ditch effort to delay her return to the party, Elena craned her neck to peer inside and spotted a map.

"Elena?" Caroline turned, backtracking when she realized she hadn't been followed into the hall. She found the other teen standing wide eyed in front of Damon's closet. "What are you doing?" She asked. Caroline took up a place at Elena's side and saw the walls were littered with newspaper articles and maps. "What's all that?" She mutters to her friend, looking around at the various notes and tacks on the doors. It reminded her of something she had seen on Criminal minds once, which, disturbingly enough, didn't raise the alarms in her head that it would have a year ago.

Elena was only half listening to her friend by then. She pulled a single sticky note off the wall, it had one word written in red. **_Klaus._**


	2. Chapter 2

**Reminder that Vicki wasn't related to Matt, I don't own TVD, and if you have a question please leave a review and I will respond in the next chapter!**

**XXXXXXXXX**

Maddie Donovan had never been a morning person and today was no exception. The screech of metal against metal was the only warning she had before her room was flooded with light and the throbbing in her head doubled. She ducked under her bedsheets and rolled away from the light with a groan, cursing her life choices and swearing then and there that she would never drink again.

"Time to get up, kid."

"Early." Matt's chuckle would have been endearing if it wasn't so loud. He pats her shoulder good naturedly and there was the quiet clink of ice in a glass to her left.

"Advil and waters on the side table, I'll give you twenty to get ready to go."

Maddie only grunted in acknowledgement, still hiding in the dark safety of her covers. She didn't need to see him to know her brother was shaking his head as he left the room. For a few moments Maddie contemplated just staying here. It was dark and quiet and she could just close her eyes and drift back to sleep… But then she wouldn't be able to see her friends. Plus, Matt would never let her hear the end of it. 'One day home and already she had ended up hungover in bed all day.'

"Crap." Maddie braced herself and then tossed the sheets off, squinting into the light. She wasn't going to give him that ammunition so early. Time to get up.

One cold shower, three Advil, and a Gatorade later, Maddie was ready to go, trudging out of the house in a pair of old jeans and a flannel. Matt met her in the car, all smiles and knowing looks.

"You know, you can stay home if you want to."

"Shut up."

**XXXXXXXXX**

By the time they arrived at the Grille the Advil had seemed to kick in and Matt had stopped sending her side glances and smiles. Maddie shouldered her backpack and made her way into the Grille. It was odd coming in here and not having a shift to work, apparently Jeremy Gilbert had picked up her spot over the last few months. It was annoying that she had to find somewhere else to work, but Matt had explained why he had gotten Jer the job and Maddie understood. There was something comforting about having a routine plus it kept people out of trouble and she didn't want to be the reason Jeremy went back to the stoner pit.

Despite not being staff anymore, Maddie trailed after Matt into the staff only room and took a seat on one of the chairs set against the back wall.

"Remind me who you're meeting with, again?" Matt prompted, casting a glance over his shoulder at his sister as he unlocked his locker and started switching into his uniform.

"No one in particular." She admitted, shrugging as she settled into her little corner.

"Uh, huh, sure. Just so you know, Julie switched to dinner shift this fall so you aren't going to have her around to make eyes a- hey!" Mat just barely caught the spare apron that Maddie chucked at his head.

"I don't make eyes!" She exclaimed; blue gaze narrowed into a glare.

Matt laughed and threw the apron back at his adoptive sister.

"Whatever you say, kid."

"I just wanted to be out of the house, figured I'd run into some friendly faces while I was here, that's all!" There weren't exactly a lot of places that people liked to hang out here in Mystic Falls. She was bound to see at least a couple people she knew while she was there.

"Okay, okay." Matt conceded with a shake of his head. "You good with going home at- Oh, no…" Maddie made a sound of confusion, craning her head to follow Matt's line of sight. "Please tell me you aren't turning into one of those losers that comes to work on their day off." Maddie perked up and shifted but some rows of boxes and a set of storage shelves blocked her view of the door.

"You remember what we talked about last night?" Ah. Jeremy. Maddie started to get to her feet to go say hello but paused when she heard what he said next. "About how I've been seeing things?"

Seeing things… As much as Maddie wanted to go say hello, she resisted the urge to interrupt. Jeremy liked to get high, it had been a party, he was probably just having a good time but still. If she was in his position, Maddie certainly wouldn't want their friend's first impression after coming home to be overhearing a conversation about a crazy high. She'd sit this one out and act like she hadn't heard anything next time she saw him. Her resolve didn't last long.

"Honestly, Jer, last night is kind of a blur, but let's talk about this later."

"Well, I saw her again. I saw Vicki."

"Vicki?" Matt swiveled towards his sister and Jeremy jumped. "Vicki Branson?" She had died nearly a year ago, or at least that was what Maddie had heard. "Isn't she… Dead?" Matt rubbed the back of his head and sighed loudly at the mess they had just stumbled into. Jeremy, on the other hand, blinked owlishly at Maddie as she appeared around the edge of the storage shelves. He quickly set his sights back on Matt.

"You couldn't have given me a heads up, man?"

"I did say we should talk about it later." Matt defended himself lifting his hands up in the classic surrender pose before pulling his apron on. Maddie stared at him pointedly, waiting for her explanation but Matt wouldn't meet her eyes. "This is something you should be talking to Bonnie about anyway, Jeremy. Why don't you tell her?"

"Bonnie? Why Bonnie?"

"Tell Bonnie that she brought me back to-" Jeremy sent Maddie a side glance and sighed, shifting his weight and biting his tongue. "You know, and now I'm seeing the, uh, the-"

"The ghost of your ex-girlfriend?" Maddie finished for him, arms crossed over her chest, eyes narrowed at the boys. There was silence as Matt rubbed the back of his head and Jeremy stared at Maddie in astonishment.

Once she had the right puzzle pieces it hadn't been hard to piece together what was going on. The Jeremy thing was weird, sure, but explainable. Throw Matt's urgency to change the topic and mention of the only other witch in town and things started to clear up, or at least be confusing in a way Maddie understood.

She had felt something was off the last few months. Some of her spells weren't working like she thought they would- or more accurately they were working too well. Summoning the dead wasn't supposed to be easy. Maybe the reason for her breakthrough was right here in Mystic Falls.

"Bonnie did a spell, didn't she?" Maddie sighed and got out her phone, already typing out a text to her friend. "Just my luck she comes into her powers while I'm away, and without Grams…" They needed to talk. Soon. Right after she dealt with this Jeremy situation.

"Woah, woah, woah, she knows?" Jeremy paced across the room to stand closer to Matt, aiming the question at him.

"Yeah, well, she does now, thanks for that, Jeremy." Matt sighed running a hand through his scruffy hair.

"How was I supposed to know? You didn't tell me she was in here!"

"Hey! I'm right here!" Maddie raised her voice, wincing as the sound bounced around her still aching head. This wasn't a conversation that she wanted to have in the Grille's staff only room. Matt had the decency to look apologetic for talking over her but Jeremy was riled up, eyeing Maddie like she might bite him if he got too close.

"You," she pointed an accusing finger at her brother and narrowed her eyes in a glare. "Have some explaining to do when we get home. Go to work I'll take care of this." She turned to Jeremy, scooping up her backpack as she spoke, "and _you_ , come with me, ghost boy. Let's see if we can fix this."

"Hey, what's going on, here, Maddie?" Jeremy asked. Matt gave Jeremy a firm pat on the shoulder as he passed as if to say 'good luck' and made his exit before this could go any further.

"Cliff notes version?" Maddie came to a stop in front of her friend. Jeremy swayed back a step to keep some space between them. "I'm a witch and you need my help. We're going to your place, fill me in on what the hell is going on while we drive."

**XXXXXXXXX**

"So, let me get this straight." Jeremy was sitting cross legged in front of Maddie, who was laying on her stomach thumbing through tomes and scribbling notes on spare pieces of paper. "You're a witch."

"Mmmhmm."

"And you learned from Bonnie's Grams."

"Mmmhmm."

"And no one knows except me because she told you to keep it a secret until Bonnie got her powers too?"

"Well, Matt knows, obviously." Maddie pointed out in a monotone, more interested in her notetaking than rehashing her history for the third time today. "He's my brother. Plus, when I was fourteen, I caught my dresser on fire by accident with a spare candle and that required some explaining." She chuckled and glanced up at Jeremy to see him doing the same.

It was nice being able to talk about this with him. Jeremy wouldn't have been her first choice in confidant, but the way his eyes lit up when she had told him her story made her glad things worked out this way. From what little he had told her so far about what had been going on here, though, finding out your sister's friend was a witch was probably a lot easier to swallow than knowing her boyfriend was a vampire. Elena really lowered her standards after Matt.

"Speaking of explaining, why didn't Matt tell us about you?" Jeremy inquired, giving voice to the same thing that Maddie had been thinking about since leaving the Grille. "Would have been nice to have someone around who knew what was going on." The young witch sighed loudly and shrugged.

"No idea, but knowing Matt it probably had something to do with the big brother thing. Well intentioned with shitty follow through."

"Sucks being the little sibling sometimes." Jeremy commiserated. He hadn't had time to go through the entire saga that was last year, but he hit the major beats and mentioned that Elena had kept him out of the loop too when this all started.

"Yep."

"Why have you been a witch for so much longer than Bonnie? She just got her powers last year." Jeremy inquired. "I figured it was, like, an age thing."

"It is, but it isn't always." Maddie agreed, finally putting down her pencil as she came to the realization that Jeremy wasn't going to take the hint and let her work. "There are a lot of different ways to practice witchcraft and a lot of different family lines. I've heard of some practitioners starting when kids are really young. Grams and I just assumed I was an early bloomer or that wherever coven I was with before I got to Mystic Falls started teaching me magic when I was little. Bennetts are strong, but they don't normally come into their powers until they're teenagers… At least according to Grams."

"Bonnie always talks about how we don't understand her witch stuff, I'm sure she'll be happy to have you on her side." Jeremy offered with a shrug and a small grin. Truth be told, he wasn't quite sure what to say now. Maddie didn't often talk about her time before Mystic Falls, but Jeremy had always been curious. Everyone was, truth be told. There had always been rumors about how a little girl had ended up abandoned in the woods of such a small town. The leading theory he heard at school used to be that Maddie had run away from a cult. Now it was only the type of thing that got brought up when no one was around to overhear you gossiping. Jeremy knew that he was prying, but curiosity got the better of him. "So, you grew up in a coven?"

"That's the leading theory. I honestly don't remember much; I was a kid and Grams always suspected there was some sort of magic at work." Maddie admitted. "I know it was old school, like I hauled a lot of water buckets and couldn't wear pants kind of old school." She smiled but it didn't quite reach her eyes. "Most of it's fuzzy, kind of like looking through frosted glass. I get feelings, blurry images sometimes… I know basic things about myself like my name's Maddie and that I had a large family but that's about it." Maddie had started fiddling with the corners of her Grimoire's pages, rubbing the old, thick paper between her fingers.

Silence settled into the room, making the air thick and heavy. Jeremy watched Maddie as Maddie pointedly didn't look up from her books. She cleared her throat and started turning pages again, but Jeremy had a suspicion that she wasn't really reading. After a few moments that felt like hours he tried to redirect conversation.

"So, uh, Vicki asked me for help. What's that about?"

"I'm more concerned about the darkness that Anna was talking about." Maddie jumped on the new conversation topic. She sped through her first sentence as if she was worried that if she waited too long it would disappear. "You said the windows shattered? That… Shouldn't be possible." Jeremy cocked his head and Maddie took that as her invitation to explain. She wrestled with an analogy before sitting upright and holding up her hand for a demonstration.

"Here, so the best way I can explain it is… When someone dies, normally a supernatural someone in my experience but who knows, think of it as they move from room A to room B." She held up her other hand so her palms were facing one another. "Normally there is essentially a one-way mirror between Room A and Room B so the people who have died can see us but we can't see them. Now, when you died something happened and now instead of that mirror, you get a window."

"Right, yeah, I can see them, what's your point."

"My _point_ Jeremy," Maddie continued, "is that your still locked in two different rooms." She brought her hands together but didn't let them touch. "There's still glass there. They shouldn't have been able to touch anything in our room and since they _did_ that means…"

"Something broke the glass." Jeremy finished, understanding washing over his face. Maddie pointed at him, nodding her agreement. "Do you think it could have been me? When Bonnie brought me back did, she, I don't know, throw a magic baseball through the window?" Despite the situation Maddie snorted out a laugh.

"I wouldn't have said it like that, but yeah. Bonnie busted a hole in the glass, mirror, whatever, and now this 'darkness' that Anna is talking about is trying to push itself- or more likely themselves- through the hole." Maddie ran a hand through her blonde curls, her nose scrunching. "I don't like this analogy anymore."

"Yeah, it's getting kind of weird." Jeremy agreed with a chuckle. Maddie gave his shoulder a shove but smiled in return. "So, where do we go from here? Do I stop talking to them? How do we help Vicki? What do you need me to do?"

"What I need you to do, Ghost Whisperer, is sit tight. I would prefer you not talk to either of your dead ex-girlfriends without me or Bonnie because this is weird enough without dating drama rolled in." If Maddie felt satisfied by the guilt painted across Jeremy's face, she would never admit it. This was the first time she had pointed out the girlfriend drama of it all. "Lucky for you this isn't the first time I've had to deal with ghosts. I'll try to summon Vicki and Anna and we can all have a chat about what's going on over there without one of them running off."

"You can talk to them, too?" Jeremy asked, interest peaking. "Wait, if you can just summon dead people why don't witches do it all the time?"

Maddie's brows lifted and guilt flashed in her eyes before she schooled her features again. She knew what he meant. If she could see people who had died why didn't she talk to Grams or let Elena and Jeremy talk to their parents after the accident. She supposed from his perspective it did seem rather selfish.

"It doesn't work like that." She tried to sound apologetic rather than defensive but her tone was a little too sharp. "I can't just summon any ghost, Jeremy. For one it's a complicated spell and not to mention, ghosts aren't supposed to be over here in the first place." Jeremy's face dropped with disappointment, his shoulders sagging just enough that Maddie noticed and realized she had been a bit too harsh.

"You're trying to send them away, then?"

"Nope." Maddie confessed, giving a shake of her head. "This was Bonnie's spell and you're Bonnie's boyfriend, so I'm not going to hide the fact that you've been having secret meetings with your exes all summer for you. Frankly, I wouldn't know where to start to stop you from seeing them but even if I did, I'm not about to get in the middle of this weird ex-girlfriend and current girlfriend timebomb situation without Bonnie knowing what's going on. I'll worry about the darkness and you worry about how you're going to tell Bonnie about all of this. I recommend bringing flowers or something because you're going to need them."

**XXXXXXXXX**

_Giggles filled the forest as a little girl with golden hair ran through the woods. She would send glances over her shoulder every now and then as she ran. Her wide blue eyes looked around frantically until she finally spotted a river up ahead._

_"I win!" The child called, chin held high with pride as she slowed to a stop and turned to grin at her opponent._

_"You have not won yet, Madelyn! You have yet to reach the waterside!" Another girl called. This one looked to be around eighteen, with the same long blonde hair and wide smile as the child._

_Both of them were dressed in plain dresses. The older one had fashioned her hair with flowers and braids while little Madelyn's was hanging in messy curls around her face. A face that had twisted into a scandalized look of shock as she turned her head from her sister to the river as if just realizing it was still a dozen strides away._

_"Then I'm_ _going_ _to win!" With that the little girl bolted as fast as her legs could carry her towards the water. The older girl laughed at the younger's persistence and picked up the edge of her long dress with one hand, jogging after her. It was obvious to anyone but little Madelyn that the teenager following her was not trying to win their race, seeing as she could have easily outpaced someone so young._

_"Yay!" The child cried when she was at the edge of the river. She turned to look at the other girl, hands resting proudly on her lips. "See Bekah! I told you I would win!"_

_"I see that." Bekah agreed, walking over. "Now here's your prize!" She suddenly swooped down and picked up girl, twirling her around playfully._

_Madelyn squeal childishly and clung to Bekah as she erupted into giggles._

_"Stop it!" She laughed closing her eyes and hiding her face into Rebekah's shoulder. "You are making me dizzy!"_

_By now Bekah was laughing along with her. After another moment she slowed to a stop so she could fix her hold on Madelyn. The little girl opened her eyes and looked up at the smiling face of her playmate._

_"Again!" She chimed._

_"Again?" The older blonde asked pretending to be confused. "I thought you told me to stop."_

_"Rebekah!" Madelyn exclaimed, her young features contorting into a poor attempt to mirror an expression they had seen on their mother's face many times when Kol or Henrik tried to avoid chores. "I was just kidding." Madelyn lectured, still grinning. She started to bounce in her sister's hold, eager to have some more fun. "Please Rebekah!"_

_"Are you sure you were kidding?" Rebekah teased, her light blue eyes sparking with delight as she joked around with her baby sister. "I did not think you were."_

_"I_ am _sure sister! Do it again!" The child pleaded. Rebekah pretended to think about it for a moment before letting herself smile._

_"Once more." She agreed. Her skirt whirled up around her shins as she spun and their laugher filled through the forest._

**XXXXXXXXX**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's chapter two! Maddie's got some experience with Ghosts, Jeremy's let her in on the secrets, and a nice little flashback at the end for you.
> 
> If you have a question or comment I'll always do my best to respond to them at the end of chapters or via PM


	3. Chapter 3

Maddie worked best under pressure, and considering Bonnie was due back home in a matter of days pressure was on. She needed to get the Jeremy situation settled before then. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Bonnie to solve her own messes, Maddie had no idea what Bonnie’s control or ability over her powers were like, it was more that she didn’t want her friend to have to deal with everything at once. They had a lot of catching up to do between Grams, witch business, and general reunion conversation, none of which would be possible if Bonnie had to help save the ghosts of Ex-girlfriends past. Besides, if her options were ghost hunting or confronting Matt, she would throw herself into her spells every time.

Matt had bailed before Maddie had even woken up this morning, no doubt trying to avoid a conversation neither of them wanted to have. That was perfectly fine by her, quite frankly she wasn’t sure what Matt could say to change her mind on the topic. Things had turned out alright, sure, but maybe if she had known she would have been able to help. Maybe Jenna would still be alive, or Bonnie would have had more support. Who knows what might have changed? Matt knew that Maddie had powers and experience with witchcraft and he had said nothing when their friends needed her.

It was easier to be angry at Matt than it was to confront the little voice whispering in the back of her mind. _Would you have come back even if he had called?_

It didn’t matter. She had work to do, and a lot of reading to get to.

Maddie pulled old, leather bound books from plastic storage bins hidden in the back of her closet and spread them out across the living room floor. Some were well loved, others so rarely touched that their spines squeaked in protest at any sort of movement. One was so old that it was written in symbols and carvings that resembled runes rather than words.

Grams had never been able to understand that particular tome, but Maddie read it cover to cover. It was one of her most treasured objects. Her mother’s Grimoire.

Maddie wasn’t sure how she knew that the book was her mothers, just like she didn’t know what language it was written in or how she could read it. It was something she knew in her very bones.

That Grimoire was one of two items that Maddie had stumbled into town with eleven years ago covered in grime and mystery. Her dirty hands had been wrapped around the Grimoire and a pendant hung from her neck, string tangled in knots of her blonde hair. The necklace was a carved bird made from hardwood and the book was unreadable so no one bothered taking them from her. Besides, who would be cruel enough to take away the only possessions of an orphan girl?

Maddie hadn’t even known much English if the rumors were to be believed. Apparently, she had spoken in half sentences, recognizable words mixing with sharp tones or rounded vowels on her tongue. Mystic Falls wasn’t exactly full of worldly travelers with language experience so she never found out what her native tongue had been. Truth be told she wasn’t sure if she would be able to speak it now if she tried. Maddie had known enough English to communicate with those who had enough patience and compassion to listen long enough. Eventually, with the help of teachers and friends she learned the language like it was her mother tongue, though not quite as if she was an American. Even after a decade she couldn’t say certain words without her tongue curling at the end or her voice pinching into an accent, but she made do most of the time… Unless Caroline wanted to have fun reading old poetry or Maddie was particularly out of it.

All of that to say, Maddie was well aware that the old dusty book with runes rather than words would not be any help to her. It was too old; used magic that she could read but not understand. Perhaps if pages were not missing or she had someone to explain the old spells things would be different, but Maddie wouldn’t waste precious time with a growing frustration.

Frustration, however, seemed inevitable.

Each book she read through turned out to be as useless as the last. Maddie was starting to think that the spirits would not help her. She thumbed at the bird hanging around her neck as she closed yet another book. Perhaps it was time to turn to less conventional methods.

She needed to make a call. After all, she hadn’t been lying when she told Jeremy she had dealt with ghosts before. The only difference was that back then she had been using a different set of rules and a friend’s expertise.

“Nicolette? It’s Maddie. I need some advice.”

**XXXXXXXXX**

_“Kol, stop it!”_

_“Oh, don’t be a baby, it’s just a little blood.” Madelyn bit back the urge to shout at her brother again. She tucked her tiny arms across her chest and fixed her face into a pout. Her brother didn’t seem to care, in fact he laughed at the girl’s attempt at glaring. Suffice to say she did not appreciate that._

_“I’m going to tell mother!”_

_A little leg kicked out at him, hitting him square in the chest. It would have hurt more had it belonged to someone with more than six years of growth under their belt, but he still let out a loud ‘ooph’ just so the girl knew she had landed the blow. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to get Madelyn to stop her glaring. She was an angry little thing when she wanted to be._

_It didn’t sit right with Kol, leaving the little one so cross with him… That and Kol didn’t want to have Madelyn tattling on him. How was he supposed to know that she would follow him all the way into the woods and cut her leg open on a rock?_

_Thinking fast on his feet, Kol decided on a plan that was surely foolproof. “That’s quite a good impression of Bekah you’re doing.” Who didn’t like making fun of their sister? It was certainly his favorite pastime. “I don’t think you’ve got her eyebrows quite right, though. You’ve got to push them together more, make them look like one big angry caterpillar!”_

_The girl’s face twitched into a smile. She turned her head to hide it, burying her face in her long blonde curls._

_Kol leaned to the side, trying to catch the child’s blue eyes with his own. “Oh, come on now, Maddie-girl!” He scooted closer and prodded her sides. “Don’t give up! Go on, try again!” He poked again and heard a little giggle. Success!_

_Kol continued his light prodding and poking until the child was giggling up a storm in his arms, all anger forgotten._

_“Now,” Kol started, lifting Madelyn by her underarms and setting her on his knee so she could catch her breath. “Lets see about that leg, yeah?”_

_He could see the blood staining her dress, a hole about the size of his fist was torn in the fabric. When he reached out to touch the edges of the dress, Maddie whined and started to rear her foot back in preparation._

_“Would you stop that! I’m trying to help you!”_

_“Help her what? Is that blood?”_

_“… Damn it.”_

_Kol didn’t bother turning around and looking to see who had found them. Rebekah was already pulling Madelyn away from him and into her own arms by the time he considered it, anyway. Madelyn, fickle thing that she was, had realized her big sister was on the way and started to sniffle again. Kol wondered absently if it was Bekah’s tone that set her off or if Madelyn had some understanding that she would get more sympathy if she was crying. Did children have that kind of cunning?_

_“Kol! I leave you alone with her for but a moment and look what happens!” Rebekah pulled up the girl’s dress to just above her knee so she could look at the cut. It was raw and red and covered in dirt. “Oh dear… That’s going to scar, Kol!”_

_“Well, what was I supposed to do? She fell!”_

_“I don’t know- maybe not drag the six-year-old out into the bloody woods?”_

_“You were supposed to be watching her, Bekah, not off making eyes at the blacksmith’s boy!”_

_“Shut your mouth!”_

_“Bite me, Rebekah!”_

_“You’re insufferable!”_

_“At least I’m not a trollop-”_

_“Bekah?”_

_The bickering stopped abruptly. Two pairs of eyes turned to the little girl who sounded close to tears. Maddie held the ruined fabric in two of her little hands, her eyes wide as saucers. She turned her head to look up at her siblings and Kol was surprised to find not pain but fear in her eyes._

_“What’s father going to do when he sees I’ve ruined it?”_

_There was a beat of silence as they all considered her words. Kol and Rebekah exchanged glances, talking silently through a serious of rapidly shifting facial expressions. Maddie whimpered and clutched at the ripped dress until her knuckles turned white._

_Kol was the one who eventually filled the silence._

_“We’ll go to mother, hopefully she’ll be able to mend the dress before father discovers it.”_

**XXXXXXXXX**

Maddie woke in a circle of salt. She blinked at the light and lifted her head from the pillow of her grimoire.

For a moment she swore she saw the blurry figure of someone standing before her. Dark gown and sandy hair. She stared, her mind not quite catching up to what she was seeing. She blinked and whatever- whoever- it was vanished.

“What the hell…” Maddie rubbed her head and turned her attention to what had woken her. Just outside the circle her phone was screaming for attention. Sending one more look at where the apparition had been moments ago, Maddie rubbed her face and reached for her cellphone, picking up on the last ring.

“Yeah?”

“Oh! I honestly wasn’t expecting you to pick up.” It took Maddie a moment to place the voice. She was still foggy from sleep; her thoughts slow and thick like mud. “It’s early there, right?”

Maddie turned to look out her window ad the sun was still high in the air. It wasn’t morning at all, what was she talking about? “What? No, it’s not- I must have fallen asleep working.” Maddie wasn’t quite sure how out of it she sounded, but it was seemed to amuse her caller.

“I’ve woken you up, haven’t I? I’ll call back in a few hours, Mads.” Mads? Who called her- oh. _Oh._

“Bonnie!” Maddie blinked in surprised and shook herself, scrambling onto her knees as she pushed the fogginess aside. “No! No, no, no, I’m here! I’m up! It’s like, noon or something.” Her leg bumped a candle, and Maddie turned to catch it, hissing as a flame licked at her fingers. “ _Motherfu_ -“

“You alright over there?” Bonnie’s concern was appreciated, but Maddie was quick to wave it away.

“I just burned myself on a candle.” Madelyn pinned her phone between her shoulder and her ear, reaching to snuff out the flame in question only to stop halfway as she realized… _I didn’t light that._ In fact, all of her candles were burning. They were sitting right where she left them at the edges of the salt circle, but she thought she had blown them out after the second attempt at the summoning spell. “I’m fine, just surprised.”

“Okay…” Bonnie didn’t sound all that convinced, but she let it slide for the time being. “Uh, you sent me a text yesterday? Sorry for the delay, things are boring here but it’s still hard to get away for long, you know?”

Maddie hummed her agreement as she picked up the lit candle and turned it in her hands. Had she remembered wrong? No, she never would have left all of them lit. For one it was a waste of candles and for another open flames near a spell circle was just asking for trouble.

“Wait- did you say it was noon?” Bonnie inquired. Maddie could practically see her checking her watch as she pieced time zones together. “Maddie, are you _home_?”

“Yeah, yeah, we’ve got a lot to talk about, Bon.” Maddie sighed, setting the candle back down in the salt and running her hand through her hair. “Now that I’m actually thinking about it, maybe I should have just waited to talk until you got home to talk to you.” This wasn’t the type of thing that you normally said over the phone. Then again, this wasn’t the type of thing that people normally said at all.

“Maddie, is everything alright? Did something happen?” Panic was building on the other side of the phone and Maddie realized what a mistake she had made. Suddenly getting sent home and then having a serious urgent text to call her had medical emergency written all over it.

“No, no! Sorry, that came out wrong. Everything’s okay, I came home early for Elena’s birthday.” Maddie soothed. “It’s just, there’s been something important I’ve been meaning to tell you… About me.” This felt like coming out all over again.

“So, the Bennett girl doesn’t know? Strange.”

Maddie nearly dropped her phone.

“ _Oh God_!” Sitting across from her, just within the boundaries of the spell circle, was a woman where moments ago there had just been air. She had soft eyes and a quiet sort of demeanor, but considering she had just appeared out of thin air Maddie felt justified in yelling at her. “Who the hell are you?”

The woman just stared, her gaze tracing the lines of Maddie’s face thoughtfully. Bonnie was not nearly as docile.

“Maddie? Maddie? What’s going on?” Bonnie was nearly yelling into the phone and quite frankly, Maddie didn’t know what to do about it. “Whose voice was that? Are you okay?”

“Go on,” the mystery woman nodded towards the phone that Maddie was now clutching with both hands. “Tell her. I cannot harm you, my darling, you know this.” She spoke with a foreign lit to her voice and gestured to the spell circle as if to remind Maddie what had brought her here. She was dead, a ghost.

“Um, Bonnie, I’m going to need to call you back.” Maddie drawled; heart hammering in her chest. She heard protest from the other line and raised her voice to speak over it. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Call you back later, okay?”

“Maddie Donovan! You cannot call me, tell me you have something important to say, and then scream and expect me to just let you go! What is going on?”

Maddie’s eyes darted around the room and her fingers drummed against her thigh. She eyed the candles and then the woman sitting in front of her. She didn’t know how long the spell would hold and something told her that making a mysterious ghost wait after they had summoned _themselves_ was a bad call.

“Fine, but remember you said you wanted to know!” Maddie quipped. It wasn’t fair to leave Bonnie hanging, and the only way to sooth her worries was, well, the truth. “I did spell, I have it under control, but there’s a ghost in my room so I have to go!”

“… What?” Her voice was breathy and confused and Maddie hated to leave her like this, but she had years to talk with Bonnie about this and only minutes with this stranger who had appeared.

“Come see me when you get home, I promise we’ll talk it out then.” Maddie heard the questions start, but spoke over her friend for the second time in as many minutes. “I have to go- I have to go! Bye!”

Maddie didn’t have time to grieve how horribly that had gone. There were bigger things to deal with right now. She slowly set her phone down beside her and eyed the stranger. Normally, she knew that there was nothing a Ghost could do to harm her, but it seemed the usual rules weren’t as reliable as they should be these days.

“Who are you? Why did you come here?”

“I’m surprised that you do not recognize me. It has been many years since we last spoke, but I had hoped...” The woman reached out to touch Maddie’s face, but the teenager leaned away, a sneer twisting her lips. The ghost tutted, glancing down at her lap and returning her hands to rest one atop the other. She should have known better than to hope. The woman closed her brown eyes and sighed softly. Now was not the time for a reunion, anyhow, they had more important things to discuss. “This is a rather impressive spell you’ve cast.”

“Yet, it didn’t seem to work until about thirty seconds ago. Any ghostly interference you want to fill me in on?” Maddie shifted towards the edge of the circle, sliding backwards so she might make a hasty escape if she needed to. “You _were_ a witch, weren’t you?” She didn’t see another reason that the woman would show up all of a sudden. “You don’t strike me as a werewolf and if you were a vampire I staked you’d probably be trying to kill me, so, process of elimination.”

Maddie took in the way the woman was dressed, the dark green fabric looked more like a burlap sack than linen or cotton. Without touching it, Maddie knew what it would feel like scraping against her skin and that it would be warm enough for winter but would be miserable in the summer heat. She had one just like it sitting in a box of mothballs and old sweaters upstairs. “I am a witch.” Perhaps it was that strange sense of familiarity that made the ghost’s claim easier to believe. “In fact, I helped teach you.”

“I grew up with you.” Maddie breathed. “I don’t remember you- who are you? Why come to me now? I have so many questions!”

“I cannot answer your questions, Madelyn, and for that I am sorry. I am only here to offer guidance.” The ghost offered a smile, though it never quite reached her eyes. Nothing about this woman struck Maddie as happy. She seemed… Hollow, somehow. “You need to be more careful. They will find you.”

“They? Who is they?” Maddie paled, leaning in towards the witch. “The spirits?” She spoke in hardly a whisper, as if worried saying the word might bring them closer. “Vampires? I’ve been careful, there’s no way.”

“If that was true, I would not be here.” Rather than agree, Maddie simply looked away, feeling very much like a child who had gotten caught with their hand in the cookie jar. “You have found your way into the middle of something much larger than you understand. Prepare yourself.”

“How? Prepare for _what?_ You still haven’t told me anything.” The woman got to her feet, brushing her long blonde hair over her shoulders as she went. Maddie scrambled to follow, reaching out to grab her arm.

The older witch jerked in surprise at the touch. Seems this spell was more than just a clever summoning as she had thought… This could be good for her. Useful.

“Please, tell me what’s coming.” Maddie watched as the woman slowly moved her gaze from Maddie’s hand to her face. Slowly, eventually, the witch nodded and uttered a single word that shocked Maddie so thoroughly that she stumbled.

“Originals.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the Kuddos! 
> 
> This chapter seemed a little slow, but it was important to the story so, alas, it had to happen. Which sibling would you like to see included in the next flashback? What part of the season are you most excited to read about? Let me know what you’d like to see and if you have time, I’m always excited to get feedback about my writing skills.


	4. Chapter 4

**I only own my OCs and additions to the original plot**

The rest of Maddie’s day had been split evenly between throwing things in frustration, trying to summon the Ghost of her lost past back again, and then taking a dead woman’s advice. She gathered vervain from the woods, meditated, and studied her spells late into the night.

Matt came and went but suddenly his questionable choices didn’t seem to matter quite as much. Funny, how hearing a few ancient bloodsuckers were coming for you really put things into perspective. Maddie didn’t bother Matt with questions or hard stares when he came home, but neither did she spent much time talking to him. She was busy and he was still avoiding her ire.

Once she felt more prepared, she would talk to him, but while she was no longer furious with him for lying to her, neither did Maddie suddenly start agreeing with his choices. For now, Maddie thought he deserved a bit of anxiety while she worked.

So, the sight that Bonnie Bennett found waiting for her when she burst into Maddie’s bedroom was a practical wiccan explosion. Maddie hadn’t passed out on top of her studies this time, but it was a near thing and she hadn’t bothered to clean up after herself before collapsing into bed.

After navigating her way through candles, books, herbs, and what looked suspiciously like a broken glass, Bonnie set two cups down on the bedside table and sat at her friend’s bedside.

“Maddie!” She shook the blonde witch’s shoulder once, then again when Maddie seemed unaffected. “Mads! Wake up!” It was a wonder they hadn’t figured out Maddie was a witch sooner, Bonnie mused, it was only explanation for how Maddie seemed to be able to sleep through an earthquake. “Maddie!”

Finally, a groan sounded from under the lump of sheets. Bonnie gave another shake and gently started to pull the edge of the quilt away to reveal blonde curls. “Come on,” Bonnie coaxed, too familiar with the pout aimed her way to fall for it anymore. “I’ll trade you coffee for answers.” 

The smell of coffee was what made Maddie open her eyes, but once she realized who was holding it, she propped herself up in bed.

“Bonnie!” A yawn crept into Maddie voice, though she tried to press it down. “What are you doing here?” She blinked and tilted her head to the side as a cup was pressed into her hand. “I thought you were at your dad’s.”

“When my friend calls and tells me she summoned a ghost? I convinced him that I needed to leave early.” Ah. There was the scolding she had expected. Maddie pushed herself upright in bed and cradled her coffee in both hands, staring at the lid rather than brave Bonnie’s expression. For a few moments the only sound in the room was the rustling of bedsheets as Maddie squirmed. “Maddie?” Bonnie ducked her head to try and catch her friend’s gaze. “You going to say something?”

She didn’t seem angry. Maddie had expected anger, she would have been mad if she was put in Bonnie’s place, then again Bonnie wasn’t exactly known for being the temperamental friend. That honor was passed between Maddie and Caroline depending on the day.

“I’d prefer not to, honestly.” Maddie grumbled. Bonnie’s sigh alone was almost enough to guilt her into a ramble. Anger would have been so much better than disappointment. Maddie wasn’t exactly an expert in motherly affection but she imaged that having your ‘mom friend’ be upset with you brought about a similar level of guilt. “That was a shitty way to tell you, I know. I’m sorry.”

“So, you _are_ a witch?” A nod, “and you know I’m one too?” Another nod. Maddie snuck a glance at her friend. Bonnie was watching her like a hawk, but it was easy to see the confusion in her eyes. “How?”

Maddie leveled a sad stare at Bonnie and waited for the obvious to occur to her. It didn’t take long.

“Grams.” Bonnie’s face cracked, her eyes going glassy with emotion. “I should have known. You weren’t getting community service hours, were you?”

“We both know she’d never need my help.” The two girls swapped sad smiles that didn’t reach their eyes. Maddie reached out and set a hand on Bonnie’s knee, squeezing softly. “I could always do little things, light a fire, sense other supernaturals, simple spell work, but one day it was like a dam burst. I didn’t know what to it, I was thirteen and the magic was too much for me. Grams knew I was a witch, she offered to help.” Once she started, Maddie couldn’t stop. Her story spilled from her lips hand in hand with apologies. “We always planned on telling you when you came into your powers. I was so excited to have someone I could tell, I knew it would be soon and I wanted to be here for you, I swear! But then Grams found a contact overseas that I could go meet to learn from, she said it would be good for me and I was so excited to see the world that I went without thinking it through. I thought you would have her here to help you- I- If I had any idea that Grams was- that she would- Bonnie I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry you had to go through this alone for so long, I should have been here.”

“Maddie…” Bonnie took the cup of untouched coffee and set it down before she pulled her friend close. The girls clung to each other, bonded through shared secrets and grief. Bonnie set her head on Maddie’s shoulder and whispered. “You have nothing to apologize for. We’ve both been keeping secrets.”

Maddie sniffed and nodded, burrowing closer as relief washed over her. She hadn’t realized how desperately she’d needed to hear that. She knew more than anyone what it felt like to be alone and she hated herself for leaving Bonnie to the same fate.

The two stayed like that, holding one another, until Maddie’s coffee was cold. Unfortunately, it couldn’t last forever.

“Uh, Jeremy told me about what happened this year. Some of it anyway.” Bonnie pulled back, but kept her hand on Maddie’s arm. She wasn’t ready to let go of that feeling. It had been too long since she last felt that soft tingling of magic against someone else’s skin. Nature’s reminder that she was with another witch. “You’ve been busy.”

Bonnie raised a brow and turning pointedly towards the carnage that covered Maddie’s floor. “By the looks of it, so have you.”

“That’s… Fair, yeah.” From Maddie’s fidgeting and the pointed way that she was no longer willing to look Bonnie in the eye, the Bennett witch figured that they weren’t getting any further along that particular line of conversation.

She would be lying to say that Maddie wasn’t worrying her. Over the last year, Bonnie had gotten used to being the only magical defense this town had and that often meant cleaning up her friends’ messes. It would take some getting used to and probably a lot of questions before Bonnie would be comfortable with someone else casting spells around here. She needed to know what was going on if she was going to keep everyone save… But she also realized she was in no position to demand anything of Maddie right now, so she tried a softer approach. “Maybe I can help? What’s going on, you mentioned a ghost on the phone yesterday?”

Two years ago, Maddie Donovan had been a light in their life. She wasn’t the life of the party or the most responsible girl around, but she had always been the first to tease and laugh. The Maddie of Bonnie’s memory was more likely to blow off school to go camping than to stress about a final paper, but as the blonde’s face dropped and her eyes grew tight with worry, Bonnie started to wonder just how much her friend had changed during her time away.

“Right. Yeah, I should probably get to work on that again.” Maddie ran a hand through her golden curls and sighed. She hadn’t a clue how she was going to deal with the mystery woman. Summoning her would be easy if only Maddie had gotten a name out of the witch. Heck, even a bloodline would have made it simpler, but the only thing that she knew about the ghost was that she was a witch in life and had been a teacher to Maddie, god knows where, over a decade ago. Quite frankly that wasn’t information that she wanted to part with just yet. Maddie knew so little about her childhood that even this half a whisper of nothing felt too intimate to share. So instead of talking about it, Maddie started to get up, the busywork she had been so intently pursuing yesterday night coming to the forefront of her mind. “Maybe Grams had something that could help, we can head on over to your place and check for-“

“Woah, woah,” Bonnie reached out and tugged Maddie back down onto the bed before she could get very far. She had just been looking for an explanation, not jump feet first into research. “Easy there. What about breakfast? Or lunch at this point.” Maddie looked blankly at her friend and then started to say something about a granola bar before Bonnie cut her off. She might not feel comfortable critiquing Maddie’s magic activities as a fellow witch, but she felt perfectly justified as a best friend in making sure Maddie was taking care of herself.

“Okay! How about this; I’m supposed to go meet Elena and Caroline before the founders party today. We can pick up some food from the Grille for you on the way. You can keep me company at the party, _relax_ a little, and then we can go over to my place and look through all the books you want tonight.” Maddie styled her blue gaze into an unimpressed stare, but didn’t outright object. “I might have only been a witch for a year, Mads, but I know just as much as you that you won’t find anything if you work yourself to death before then. By the look of this place, you need some rest and a break.” 

“You’re the one that woke me up.”

“Maddie.” Bonnie had to fight the smile that started to twist her lips and was thankful when her friend’s frown cracked to mirror her. “Come on.”

“Fine, but I want fries.”

**XXXXXXXXX**

Maddie was perched on a stool in the Gilbert kitchen, munching on a burger as her friends prepared yet another batch of Chili for the founding family cookout.

“I could help if you want.” She offered, standing and leaning over to try and get a look at what Elena and Caroline were working on. “It smells good.”

"Oh no, you stay on _that_ side of the kitchen." Elena warned, electing snickers from Caroline and Bonnie. They all remembered the brownie mess of ’09. Maddie hadn’t been allowed to cook at their houses since.

Maddie crossed her arms and shrugged as the others laughed. “Fine, more lunch for me.” She grumbled, tossing some fries into her ketchup. “Since when did you learn how to cook?" She asked. “I remember you had a hand in that oven fire.”

Elena wasn’t the one who spoke up, Caroline got there first and she sounded none too happy about it.

"Damon's been helping her." She drawled. Bonnie didn't seem pleased either.

" _Damon's_ helping you cook now?" She asked. Maddie frowned and looked back and forth between the three, waiting for someone to fill her in.

Elena sighed "Both of you stop judging." She requested "He's just trying to be a good friend."

“Damon is the… Brother?” Maddie guessed, realizing that no one was going to offer any help. Bonnie offered a nod. “Well, what’s wrong with that? Cooking is just cooking.” She sent a pointed look to Caroline and then nodded in Elena’s direction and added. “It’s not like Elena could make anything by herself, she managed to burn soup once.”

The joke did what she intended and Caroline snorted out a laugh. Bonnie and Elena were quick to follow along. “I did not!” Elena objected through her smile and Maddie grinned right back, swiveling on her stool and electing not to respond.

It was nice, having them all together again.

The cooking started up again and Caroline helped Elena transfer the Chili while Maddie tried to keep Bonnie from stealing another French fry off her plate. All of a sudden, Elena cried out and reached for her necklace.

"What, did I splash you?"

"My necklace." Elena shook her head and pulled the pendant away from her skin revealing a circular burn. Elena held the necklace away from her skin by the chain and looked down at where it had been hanging. "It burned me..." She reported, shocked. Then she reached behind her neck and gently undid the clasps, taking the necklace off.

"Maybe it’s a sign you shouldn't be wearing it." Caroline quipped. Bonnie frowned and scolded,

"Caroline, really?"

“Yeah, that doesn’t feel like the take away here.” Maddie grumbled, eyeing the strange little locket with a frown. There was something odd going on here, though she couldn’t put her finger on what.

"What I'm just sayin'... If you’re going to be cooking without Stefan now."

Elena let out an irritated sigh and held the necklace out in front of her so she could look at it. Both Maddie and Bonnie peered at it before Bonnie reached out to take the necklace.

“Let me see it.” She didn’t make it more than halfway before Maddie swatted her hand away. “Ouch!”

“Maybe don’t touch burn-y object with your bare hands?” Maddie pointed out what she thought should have been obvious and she heard Caroline made a noise of agreement from across the counter.

“Don’t you feel that?” Bonnie asked. They had agreed to keep Maddie’s secret for the time being. Not because they didn’t trust the other girls, Elena and Caroline were both obviously capable of keeping supernatural secrets, but because the purpose of the day was to have time away from Maddie’s ghost hunt and Bonnie had heard what a mess this summer had been supernaturally for Elena and Caroline too. One normal day for all of their sakes. Seems that might not be on the agenda.

“Duh, but that’s why you shouldn’t touch it! It’s called ‘not sticking your hand in a magical beartrap’ Bonnie.”

“How do you know it’s a beartrap?”

“It just burned Elena!” Maddie shot back, her brows raising. No wonder these three had gotten caught up in so much trouble. She could already tell that Bonnie wasn’t going to let this go, and Caroline and Elena were looking at her like she had grown a second head, so Maddie sighed loudly and decided that she might as well try to minimize the damage. “Fine, give it here.” 

Elena exchanged a glance with the other two girls before holding it out to the blonde. Maddie wiped her hands on her napkin to remove the fry grease from her fingers and then hiked her sleeve up over her hand to take the necklace safely.

Nothing happened.

“See?” Bonnie said smugly, moving to touch the pendant herself. As soon as she did the necklace sparked against her bare fingers, singeing Maddie’s sleeve and lighting up the kitchen. Everyone gasped, but none louder than Maddie. She felt the surge of magic and rather than run from it, she grabbed hold, curling her fingers over the locket and snapping her eyes closed as she chased the spell.

Images flickered behind her closed eyes. She saw an old woman with close cut white hair muttering in Latin. _Another witch._ Maddie immediately thought. She saw another girl, a teenager by the looks of her, with wavy blonde hair and deep blue eyes sitting on the table next to the witch. She seemed bored, but expectant. Had she not been so surprised by the vision, Maddie might have noticed how similar the woman looked to Maddie herself. There was a man with blonde hair and a smattering of stubble standing off to the side watching, and a moody looking guy with dark brown hair beside him. The last one, he seemed familiar, like she had seen him before. It took her a few more moments before she realized she had, at least in a picture. It was Stefan.

Maddie immediately identified the last of the four as a vampire, she could sense it as if she was in the room with him herself, but the last two... She wasn't quite sure. She felt the familiar cold, dead feeling that she had come to identify as vampire but there was also a warmth coming from them that she hadn't yet experienced. The old witch looked up and though Maddie was not physically there, she felt as if the other woman was staring at her.

All to quickly, Maddie was pulled out of the vision and the necklace dropped in her surprise. As soon as she broke contact the locket the sparks she had suppressed shot to life again. She looked at it with wide eyes for a moment before feeling a hand on her shoulder and looking over. Bonnie was looking at her with a mixture of amazement and confusion, something that seemed to happening more and more often lately.

The girls were locked in an eerie silence for a few seconds before Maddie broke it by gesturing firmly at the dropped necklace with two fingers. “Bear. Trap.”

The kitchen exploded with questions.

**XXXXXXXXX**

Gloria quickly snapped her eyes open and let go of Rebekah's hand as little white sparks burst to life where their skin met. Rebekah recoiled and pulled her now burnt hand to her, cradling it like a bird held a broken wing.

"Ow!" The flesh was already healing, but it wasn’t in Rebekah’s nature to be subtle. No one bothered asking if she was alright, all eyes were on Gloria.

“I found it.”

The reactions around the room varied from grave to satisfied. Rebekah was fluctuating somewhere between the two extremes.

"So where is it?" The Original sister asked sharply, crossing her arms. Her flesh wound was already forgotten.

"It doesn't work like that, Doll." Gloria stated. "I get images... There was a girl with her friends-"

"Yes, a _dead_ girl with _dead_ friends if I don't get my necklace back." Rebekah threatened. Gloria just sighed, though she couldn’t help but be a bit amused. One would think that living for a thousand years might have instilled someone with a bit more patience. Besides, she had more to tell them about than just their necklace.

"You won't want to be killing her." Gloria informed, a satisfied little drawl to her voice.

"Her? What the bloody hell are you babbling on about?" Rebekah’s already short temper was shrinking and Gloria decided it would probably be in her best interest to turn conversation towards someone with better manners.

"Someone intercepted my spell." She announced, turning to look at Klaus. “A witch. A descendant.”

"I don't care about the well-being of a Salvatore." Rebekah snapped, earning the old witch's attention once more. Gloria shook her head, making her dangling earrings sway back and forth.

"Not his, yours."

"Impossible." Klaus sounded bored. "All of my siblings are vampires, we can’t reproduce." He reminded her as he strolled over to the witch’s table, but Gloria was sure of what she felt.

"I sensed a witch, kin to the original witch." She reiterated, meeting Klaus’ stare unwaveringly. “She piggybacked my spell, got a look at us while I was looking at her. She’s got old magic, the kind that hasn’t been around in a while.” Rebekah and Niklaus exchanged a look. “It’s hard to mistake that kind of thing.”

"Stefan, how about you go pull up the car." Klaus suggested, but his tone made it clear that he wasn't asking. He was commanding.

The brown-haired vampire's mouth was set in an irritated line but he knew better than to voice his distaste to the situation. Instead, he just nodded and made his way out of the door. Gloria sighed and collected her grimoire, making her way into the back room to get some things done. It was clear this wasn’t a conversation she was welcome to either. Klaus caught her by the arm as she passed and leaned close, muttering into her ear.

“Find the necklace and the girl by nightfall or I’ll rip out your spine and find another witch who can.”

He released her and as soon as Gloria had left Rebekah was in front of her brother, looking up at him. "Nik..." She muttered; her eyes lit with excitement. "What if-" Klaus shook his head cutting her off.

"No, Rebekah. She's dead, we both know that. Mother searched for days using her magic and sensed nothing."

"But Nik, what if Ayana-"

"No! Rebekah, even if she had survived, she would be long dead by now. This witch must be as Gloria said, a descendent. Nothing more." He would not believe that his baby sister had been alive all this time and yet had not bothered to find her family. She had to be dead, and with her his family's humanity had died as well.

Rebekah's eyes glazed over in sadness and grief as she realized her brother must be right. Nik placed a hand on her shoulder and then sighed before pulling her into a gentle hug. He sympathized with his little sister’s distress. Rebekah had spent the first century or more as a vampire searching for their lost sibling, it was cruel to dangle hope in front of her like this. "It’s alright, Rebekah, she was able to live her life. At least now we know that much." He tried to sooth his sister.

Bekah nodded into his shoulder, "but that means my baby sister is well and truly gone, Nik. At least before I could have hoped-"

Klaus held her a little tighter and shushed her rather than let Rebekah continue. It was easy enough to deduce what she was thinking. If Madelyn had descendants then she had grown old enough to bare children. She hadn’t been affected by Esther’s vampire spell and been turned as they had. No one but Rebekah had held onto that hope, after all Klaus had eyes and ears all over the world by now. If there was some eternal child wandering about Europe or traipsing through Asia he would have heard of it. Still, no one had ever been able to convince Rebekah her search was meritless. Not until now, it seemed.

**XXXXXXXXX**

“Do you think you could track it down?”

After that morning’s kitchen fiasco, the girls had split up. Bonnie had gone to get one of her grimoires, Caroline and Maddie had a heart to heart, and Elena… Well, they weren’t sure where Elena went, honestly. She kind of just… Left. One moment Maddie was asking Caroline about her daylight ring and the next Elena was walking out of the kitchen.

“Me?” Maddie shot a look of surprise at Bonnie as she took a seat next to Caroline. “I thought Bonnie was going to do it. It’s her book.” Caroline nudged Maddie with her elbow playfully and teased,

“Come on, super witch, show us what you’ve got.” Bonnie shook her head and chuckled as she flipped to the right page, but Maddie couldn’t help but notice that Elena’s frown deepened.

“Locator spells aren’t really my thing, Care.” Maddie admitted with a shrug.

“What do you mean? It’s a pretty standard spell, Mads.” Bonnie leaned forward, resting her elbows on top of the massive book. It struck her as odd that something so basic would be beyond Maddie’s grasp when she was summoning ghosts just yesterday.

“I’ve tried dozens of them, I always mess them up.” The blonde witch repeated, giving a shrug. “Just let Bonnie do it. It’s fine.”

“I don’t know, you had more interaction with the magic source. It would probably be more effective if you do it.”

“Bonnie, I’m telling you, it’s a bad idea.”

“Well, it’s worth a shot, isn’t it?” Bonnie argued, pushing even when Maddie started to grow tense and agitated.

“You do it then!” Caroline’s brows raised almost to her hairline. This was escalating far too quickly. It wasn’t like Maddie didn’t have a temper, but she normally didn’t get worked up about little things like this. Usually, she at least took some time to ramp up unless- oh.

“You tried to track down your family, didn’t you?” The vampire’s voice was uncharacteristically soft and Maddie didn’t bother responding. Bonnie’s face fell, first regretful then sympathetic.

“Sorry, Maddie.”

“It’s fine.” The blonde was quick to shake off the apology, but she couldn’t escape the side hug that Caroline trapped her in. “It was a long time ago; I haven’t done it in years. Every time I would try to find where I came from it always just circled back to Mystic Falls. I’m over it.”

“We could try again?” Bonnie offered, “I could help, or maybe we could find a new spell.”

“I said it’s fine, Bonnie.” The blonde insisted, giving a shake of her head before moving the conversation along. “Do we even need to track it?” Maddie asked, leaning into Caroline’s side. The others noticed the deflection but no one was rude enough to point it out. “I saw Stefan with the witch who was casting the spell. We know Stefan’s with Klaus,” a fact that had only made the ghostly witch’s warning more pressing, not that Maddie had cared to share that information with anyone, “so he’s the other guy and Elena knows where both of them are, so why bother tracking anything? If you ask me, we should ship that necklace off to Timbuctoo. Scary witch will find it there and her Original buddies can go look for it far, far away from here.”

“I’m not giving up the necklace.” That was the first time Elena had spoken since all of this happened. Maddie wasn’t sure what her problem was, but she knew better than to ignore Elena when she was pouting so she lifted her hands in a surrender pose and backtracked.

“Okay, fine. Then maybe we switch tactics?” She suggested. Caroline lifted her brows and gestured for Maddie to continue. “Give it to me for a few days, I can look for a way to cloak it or maybe make a golem to mimic it, I don’t know, but we have to do something about that thing sooner rather than later.”

“Okay. You try to figure out a way to hide the necklace and I’ll take over your ghost problem for now.” Bonnie agreed, closing her Grimoire with a final thud.

“Your _what_ problem?” Caroline asked, her voice jumping an octave.

“Okay, okay, I know that sounds bad, but _technically_ , it’s _Jeremy’s_ problem. I was just the witch on call at the time.” Maddie defended herself. “Don’t blame the messenger.”

“Jeremy’s what?” Elena and Bonnie both snapped to attention and Maddie felt like kicking herself for spilling Jeremy’s secret… Then again, he had it coming. He was cheating on one of Maddie’s best friends.

“Right…” She stood and turned to Bonnie, “You should go talk with your boyfriend.” She gave the witch a nod before turning to Elena, “you get ready to yell at your brother.” Maddie turned to Caroline and held out her hand, making grabbing motions, “and you get to come with me and we can eat chilli at a safe distance."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you go! A chapter came early this week! Honestly, I really just wanted to get this out of the way and finished so I could start writing Klaus and Rebekah’s return to town next chapter. Let me know what you think in a comment! I’d really love to get more feedback and requests for flashbacks.


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